


Power

by rosegoldcacti



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, BUT THEN WHO WAS PHONE, F/F, F/M, Fluff, M/M, and young soldiers in love, basically all the good shit, grumpy old soldiers, lets find out, lots and lots of fluff, reaper was a good guy all along™, that will eventually become
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 18:07:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8023810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosegoldcacti/pseuds/rosegoldcacti
Summary: After the Petras act is repealed and Overwatch forms again, its new Strike Commander finds herself dealing with love as brutal as the kind that ripped it to the ground in the first place – and Pharah’s as desperate to not repeat old mistakes as she is to bring Overwatch back to its former glory. Ana’s the disapproving mother, Gabe is back with a plan, and Jack is as grumpy as any old soldier has a right to be.Pharah/Mercy, with background Soldier/Reaper and Ana/Reinhardt, among others.





	Power

“Is this some kind of joke?”

Ana slammed her fist onto the table, teacups rattling as she threw herself forward. Fareeha stayed where she was, leaning carefully back on the lacy café chair – shoulders wide, legs spread, back straight, eyes forward. Perfect posture an attempt to get her mother to see reason, but certainly not one that was working.

“Strike Commander? STRIKE COMMANDER?! I spend all these years working to protect you, and the instant you’re offered power you take it without a thought?!” Ana leaned back, arms crossed, teeth gritted. “And don’t you dare say I abandoned you. I kept an eye on Helix Security for all those years.”

“And you never bothered to let me know you were alive.” Fareeha wasn’t a young woman anymore, but her voice still shook as she delivered the line, cold and cutting as it was meant to be.

Goddamnit. Ana would see weakness, and it’d cement her idea that she wasn’t suitable for command. It was always too easy – automatic, even – to see her mother as Captain Amari more than, well, her mother. But she seemed to find it impossible to return the favor – seeing her own daughter as Strike Commander Amari more than little Fareeha, sparring with Gabriel in front of Blackwatch recruits in her favorite blue dress.

Captain (and she’d earned that rank back, the UN security council determining her skills far more useful in the reformed Overwatch than bounty hunting in Cairo) Ana Amari was many things. Headstrong, responsible, infuriating, and once upon a time even beautiful. But being a good mother was rarely one of those things, cycling between overwhelmingly smothering and unfathomably distant – a soldier protecting her own the best she could.

With long tours of duty and a faked death, leaving a 15-year-old daughter alone to witness the collapse of whatever family she had left. Fareeha joined the Egyptian military immediately after the fall – her combat testing scores and name enough to allow her in despite her age, and completely devoted herself to her work.

But the pain and grief remained. She’d been all but raised by the members of Overwatch – Jack and Gabriel, her two fathers without the Amari name. McCree and Lena, the affectionate older siblings. Reinhardt, the booming grandfather who’d first taught her to use and maintain power armor. And, first, last, and most of all, beautiful Dr. Zeigler, the beating heart of many of her teenage crushes.

Ana picked up her teacup, taking a neat sip with her steady sniper’s hands, and nursed the cup to her chest. “I did what I must.”

“And so you did.” Fareeha reached for her cup before thinking again, dropping her hands in her lap. “But now you have to accept this. I’m younger than Jack was when he took command. People are uncertain – afraid – about the new Overwatch. But you were beloved. People still ask for your autograph, after all these years, and – “ She paused, glancing aside, some small muscle in her jaw twitching as she swallowed her pride. “I need your support. Overwatch – needs your support.” _And I need my mother too._ But she was too old to beg for approval from her, knowing none would come.

“So you’re asking me to publicly endorse you.” Ana was all business now, leaning forward intently, caught in the mix of violence and publicity that defined Overwatch. “And what’s wrong with Jack, assuming this was his idea?”

“Too much controversy with Soldier: 76. And it’s well known that Gabriel was a double agent for Talon, and that he’s continuing Blackwatch operations. Reinhardt has endorsed me already. Torbjorn isn’t exactly a public face. Which leaves only you.”

“And it won’t be suspicious that the Strike Commander’s own mother is endorsing her?”

Improvement. She was getting used to the idea – at least Captain Amari was. But she wasn’t so sure about the part that was her mother.

***

Pharah glanced at herself in the dressing room mirror, adjusting the neat blue structure of her dress uniform. The past two weeks had been a blur of paperwork and cleanup ops, somehow combining the thrill of command in combat with the bone-deep chill of responsibility, each new signature throwing someone else’s life on the line to save hundreds more.

Fareeha was certain it’d get old soon. 

This would be the first public appearance of the new Strike Commander, and very likely the most important day for the new Overwatch so far that didn’t involve a fake funeral being reversed. She’d have to convince them it meant a return to peace and prosperity, not another ticking time bomb. It’d also finalize the new Blackwatch commander – Gabriel swore that he’d appoint whoever it was during the Overwatch afterparty, a tradition after the press conferences everyone hated so much.

She felt rather than heard someone come in behind her, glancing in the mirror to see blonde hair peeking from behind her broad shoulders, small hands resting on her stomach before a warm body pressed gently behind. Fareeha smiled, tipping her head back to peck Angela on the cheek.

“Nervous? I could get you some medication, if you need it.” Always pragmatic and professional, her Dr. Zeigler. Fareeha briefly considered asking her to help with her nerves, with her mouth and skilled fingers instead of drugs, but decided that that’d be a little too obvious. She settled for turning to tip Angela’s delicate chin up to kiss her properly, a chaste little thing that meant the world.

It was the kiss they’d first shared after flying desperately out of a Talon cell with the intelligence they’d come for, landing outside the compound covered in dried gore and the powdery, ashy residue of spent biotics. A revolting taste most of the time, but on the good doctor’s lips it’d tasted like water in the desert. And it was the same kiss Mercy had hauled her into, when they came back to their cheap motel room, before impatiently kissing elsewhere – neck, collar, a pause at her breasts before going all the way down.

Fareeha hauled her mind from that memory with some effort, noting Angela’s knowing expression, a small smile and pink rising high into those perfect cheekbones. Of course she’d know instantly – she was a doctor, she didn’t need anything else to see arousal.

“Your lipstick is smeared.” It wasn’t at all what Fareeha had been expecting from that look, and it took her a second to process Angela’s words.

“Oh! Oh, yes, of course.” Flustered, she whipped back towards the mirror, rubbing insistently at the corners of her mouth before giving up and snatching the concealer. She could see Angela’s grin in the mirror – no coy smile here, just a wide, genuine beam as she watched her boss and girlfriend inexpertly fix her makeup.

“What’s so funny?” Fareeha snipped back at that perfect grin, blinking slowly enough to make Angela’s breath catch. Target acquired.

After a pause, the grin came back. “Nothing. Just wondering how you aim so perfectly with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, but can’t put some cream _around_ your lips instead of on them.”

She was about to retort when a sharp rap rang through the room.

“Two minutes, Amari!” Gabriel roared through the closed door.

“Since when have I been ‘Amari,’ _Gabi_?”

“Since you became my boss, _Fari_. Now get a move on.”

“That’s _‘Get a move on, commander ma’am’_ to you!”

“Over my dead body, _chica_.”

Angela piped up, “Already done.”

A beat.

“Fuck both of you.”           

They heard him stomp away, managing to make it all the way to the end of the hallway before he cracked up. Pharah had been unlucky enough to be on the other end of the Reaper’s laughter – melodramatic and cruel, meant to unsettle and strike fear into lesser soldiers. But Gabriel’s real laugh was loud and ugly, a snorting mess that could only be genuine.

Angela caught Fareeha’s eye, trying to keep a straight face, before they both dissolved into giggles.

No, Overwatch wasn’t the same, Fareeha pondered as she pinned the microphone to her chest, making one last pass at her uniform (and getting another peck from Angela, avoiding her newly fixed cosmetics) before whisking purposefully outside and to the tiny area behind the stage. In the old Overwatch, making the surly Blackwatch commander so much as smile was a privilege reserved for Jack – and rarely, Fareeha, after she’d mastered a particularly demanding move. But he’d seemed to have much more to smile about these days – the guilt he carried transferred to a responsibility to rebuild what he’d destroyed, the kind of immediate purpose soldiers thrived on.

The small room was a roaring sea of blue and black and gold, press and brass from all the world’s armies, offset by Jesse’s ridiculous hat and Winston’s massive bulk, excitedly discussing something with a  group of Japanese scientists. She paused, bemused, as Hana and Lena did something on their holophones that involved flicking little balls at cartoon animals on the official’s heads, before leaping out of the way to catch a bemused Lucio, barely on time and – miraculously – in a decent uniform instead of street clothes.

She watched Gabriel, finally composed, offer an arm to Jack, sitting wide and weary. He glanced up, then took it, taking the opportunity to swat Gabe’s ass on the way up. He didn’t react, but his eyes gleamed as he suppressed a smile. Angela was dressing down McCree – she could only assume the hat and the belt buckle were to blame, never mind the cowboy boots. Genji watched, cackling, clapping his bemused brother on the back after some choice phrase from Angela.  

Fareeha guessed some things never changed.

One last microphone check, a glance at her notes, a deep breath, and the fanfare blared as spotlights slammed into her face. 


End file.
